by Jan Jones
"You are a very clever girl," I murmured to Ellie. "We'll keep your daddy a secret just between us, shall we? Tuck those fair genes away."
Ellie wrinkled her nose at me and I kissed it. As Kim had promised, the misery of being pregnant had faded already, leaving me with just a deep love for my daughter.
Skye was as fond of Ellie as I was, showing her off proudly as various relatives came to inspect her. Blake got a bit restive at this point. I'm not sure he'd realised quite how big my family was, or how many of them Skye was already familiar with. Mind you, I was restive too. Nice as it was being on maternity leave, I was ready to go back to work. I wasn't cut out to be a stay-at-home mother, and certainly Skye was happier and better adjusted when he was mixing with his cousins every day rather than just being at home with me. I reasoned Ellie would be the same.
Back into our routine again, Blake began to observe sourly that the children saw more of other people's parents than they did of their own. I shrugged it off, putting it down to him not being used to a large family. Another occasion on which I was entirely wrong.
Unlike some of the other husbands in my support group, he enjoyed fatherhood. He was happy to look after the kids on the days when he worked from home. And if he did buy toys that were more educational than fun, well, it was his money.
I would have been quite happy to carry on the way we were indefinitely, but Blake suddenly announced that renting a flat was simply putting cash into other people's pockets and we should be buying our own place. To my dismay, he made a bid on a ghastly 1920s house in Finchley - cold, gloomy, oppressive and two long bus rides away from Mum.
“It’s a terrific modernisation opportunity, Caro,” said Blake. “We’d be mad not to go for it. We can decorate in the evenings when the children are asleep. Gallons of magnolia paint, storage units, and we’ll knock the breakfast room into the scullery for a decent-sized kitchen. I can see it now, can’t you?”
Trying not to make it sound like a criticism, I pointed out the difficulties with childcare.
He waved this away. “We’ll get an au pair. A pal of mine knows an agency. They cost hardly anything if you house them and teach them English. I’ll be working from home a lot on this new series, so I can keep an eye on her.”
He'd already made his mind up. I didn't much like the idea, but having decided I owed it to him to be a good partner after using him to cover up Ellie's birth, I tried to be positive. I said it was important that the children still mixed with other kids regularly, so perhaps they could go to the tiny church nursery two or three times a week. How did that sound?
I was so naive. It took me ages to realise that the time I came back from work early with a splitting headache and found Blake with the au pair across his knee, it might not have just been because she’d run Skye’s bath too hot that morning. I was horrified, of course, and furious with him. I said there were laws against chastisement and Astrid would have been within her rights to sue us. I said if he wasn’t happy with her, I’d get up extra early and take the kids to Mum every day, no matter how difficult the journey. He replied that he didn’t know what had come over him and it wouldn’t happen again.
I had so many doubts during that time. Blake was an excellent father, but he really did like to be in control of everything. Astrid didn’t seem to mind being bossed around. She grew glossy and insolent. I didn't like her, and suspected her of poking around in my wardrobe when everyone was out.
About a fortnight later she proved it.
I'd got as far the tube station in the morning, when I realised I'd left the production schedule I'd been working on at home. Cursing, I hurried back, only to see Astrid walking the kids to the nursery wearing my green Biba platform shoes!
White hot fury engulfed me. "I'll take the children from here," I said, wrenching the pushchair out of her hands and leaving her standing on the pavement. "You go and pack. You're fired. Take my shoes off before you leave."
"Blake likes me to wear them," she called after me.
I balanced Skye on the pushchair and flew it along the road to the church. Then I marched back. At home, Blake was looking annoyed. Presumably Astrid had interrupted his work, complaining about me.
"You can't just fire Astrid like that, Caro," he said. "What about the children? Who is going to look after them? I'm busy later."
"I already have fired her," I said crisply, dialling Mum's number. "Domestic crisis, Mum. Can you pick up Skye and Ellie from the church hall and keep them for the rest of the day? I'll come to you after work if Dad doesn't mind giving us a lift home." I looked, at Blake, still furious. "There, that gives Astrid plenty of time to pack and get out of the house. I don't want to see her face ever again."
"That's a little unreasonable, don't you think? Where's she going to find to sleep tonight?"
I shrugged. "I don't care. She's got all day to look. I want my shoes back, any other clothes she's stolen and the front door key. If you are too busy to change the lock, I'll ask Dad to do it." I pushed past Astrid to get to the study, picked up my production schedule and came back into the hall again, addressing her directly. "Shoes. Off. Now. Those were given to me by my cousin. You chose the wrong pair to show off in." I stormed along the hall to the front door and turned, looking at Blake this time. "If she's still here when I get home with the kids this evening, I'm turning straight round with them and we'll go back to Mum's to sleep."
I must have made my point, because Blake phoned me at work later. "She's gone. The agency is sending someone else tomorrow."
"Good," I said. "Have you changed the locks?" I was still angry.
His voice was very controlled, but I didn't care. "Not yet. I'll get on to it now." He paused. "I didn't realise Jilly had given you those shoes."
"Well, she did, which made it worse, but that's not the point. Astrid shouldn't have been wearing anything of mine. I have to go, Blake. I'll see you later."
I found the shoes in the dustbin the next day, ripped to shreds. It didn't matter. I wouldn't ever have worn them again anyway.
Astrid was replaced by Danielle, a timid mouse of a girl who was wary of absolutely everything. She even asked permission when she wanted to make herself a coffee. She was fine with the kids as far as looking after them went, but she seemed to have no opinions of her own and her habit of dressing like a third world refugee and just sitting in a corner of the lounge every evening watching television in silence creeped me out.
"For goodness sake," I said to Blake. "She's single, twenty and in a foreign country. Why isn't she painting the town red in the evenings?" Like I used to do not so very long ago.
"You didn't like it when Astrid went out."
"Astrid," I said pointedly, "was a completely different kettle of fish."
"You're right. Danielle should be taking time to explore," agreed Blake. "She must have friends in London. I'll suggest it to her."
Apparently, Danielle did have friends. Looking scared and furtively excited, she started going out a couple of times a week. There was even mention of a boyfriend. It was one of the periods when Blake was working late quite a lot, so it was wonderful having the house to myself again.
A couple of months later, however, I noticed Danielle's gaze was starting to follow Blake from under lowered lashes when he walked across a room. I also noticed the way she quivered when he patted her in absent approval after she'd learnt a new phrase or tidied the children's rooms especially well. There was, I thought cynically, no way Blake wouldn't have noticed these things as well. The question was, why hadn't he discouraged her crush on him? And the unpalatable answer? Presumably because he enjoyed it.
I suppose all marriages go through these problems. Was it my fault? It's true I was busy most of the time, but then, so was he. The decorating was virtually done now, but I still worked hard during the day because I didn't know any other way. When I was home, I spent time with the children. Blake and I didn't do anything together on our own.
None of which would have mattered
if... I caught myself on the thought. Come on, Caroline, out with it...
None of which would have mattered if I'd been properly in love with him.
There. I'd admitted it to myself and it was bad. I was living with Blake as his wife under false pretences. I had accepted his ring solely for the respectability that having two legal parents conferred on children. I'd liked him, of course, and it was clear he had fallen for me. I'd assumed that love would come in time. The fact that it hadn't so far, made no difference. I had a duty to make things work. I had an obligation. This wasn't something I could talk to Mum or Kim about. I'd have to sort it out myself. Be more loving towards Blake. Be more available. Talk to him more.
I did make an effort, and it did work to an extent, but Blake hated being chattered to in the mornings, he disliked being asked about his work, and on the evenings when he was home, he was also generally involved with the children.
Danielle grew even meeker in the face of my open lovingness. Her feebleness annoyed me intensely. I even had to stop myself being irritated by her long sleeves and high necks and opaque tights.
"Aren't you hot?" I snapped one morning. "It is July, after all."
She sidled away nervously.
Unfortunately, Danielle breaking up with her boyfriend coincided with Blake's annual climbing holiday, so I was stuck with her passive presence from the moment I got home in the evenings to the moment I went out in the mornings. She drooped so much I eventually gave her a week off out of sheer desperation and took the kids to stay with Mum. "She's driving me demented," I complained. "Other families have cheerful Aussie au pairs who go to museums at weekends and take off every night to the pub with their friends. Why can't I have one of those? Danielle just drifts about the house giving great miserable sniffs and apologising for disturbing me. The only way I can escape from her is to catch the bus to see you."
"Ah, I've been thinking about that," said Mum. "It's high time you learnt to drive now that you've got children to be responsible for. Your cousin Yvonne's new bloke is a driving instructor. Do you want a set of family-rate lessons as an early Christmas present?"
The freedom not to be dependent on public transport! "Oh, Mum, yes please!"
When I returned home, relaxed after a loving, bickering week with the family, it didn't appear as if Danielle had done anything except lie on her bed eating chocolates. "That girl," I said to Blake when he arrived back looking tanned and fit following his three weeks in the mountains, "has been about as much fun as a wet weekend."
"Really? She seems all right now."
"That's because you're back and you pay her wages."
He preened. There was no other word for it. "I'll have a word with her," he said indulgently. "Maybe she's had a row with her boyfriend."
"She has," I snapped. "They've broken up. She hasn't been out once all the time you've been away."
"Preposterous. I daresay it's all a misunderstanding. I'll talk to her."
The next afternoon she humbly asked permission to go out for the evening.
"Yes, of course," said Blake without consulting me. "I've got to go into town for a meeting. Would you like a lift?" He glanced at me as if to say there, sorted, what was all the fuss about?
I gave a tight-lipped smile back.
It seemed to do the trick. The day after her evening out she was almost embarrassingly eager to help, barely sitting down at all before springing up again. It was a nursery morning, so we were getting the kids ready to go out. Ellie was walking now, and had a habit of clutching at the nearest person for support. She grabbed the back of Danielle's thigh, making the girl yelp.
"Is something wrong?" I asked, glancing at her as I hoisted Ellie into the pushchair.
"I... I fell yesterday." She mimed tripping. "I hurt my..." her hand floated agitatedly in the region of her bottom.
"Oh, right. Well, be careful. Hope it gets better soon."
"Thank you." She grasped the pushchair and set off along the road. Following behind them on my way to the tube, I noticed she was indeed walking stiffly. I dismissed it from my mind and ran through the Highway Code in my head instead.
For once, Danielle didn't sidle into the lounge to watch television with us. Instead she asked if there was enough hot water for a bath. I replied impatiently that yes, of course there was, and she really didn't need to ask all the time.
Later I felt guilty, remembering her fall. Perhaps she'd wanted to soak her bruises. I got the arnica out of the medicine cabinet and tapped on her door. There was no answer, though I could hear the radio playing softly. I tapped again, a little louder. Still no answer. I opened the door a crack and looked in.
Danielle was asleep on the bed, lying on her front, stark naked. All across her bottom and the tops of her legs were masses of angry red stripes. Either she'd fallen down on a cattle grid yesterday - unlikely in the centre of London, I'd have thought - or her wretched boyfriend had very, very nasty tastes. I shut the door and leaned back against it, feeling sick.
"She needs to go home," I said, going back downstairs again soberly.
Blake looked infuriated. "Not again, Caro. What's the matter this time?"
My gut twisted. I knew these things happened of course, but I'd never met anyone who'd been schooled to enjoy pain before. I was eaten up with guilt for all the times I'd been irritated by Danielle instead of finding out what was wrong. "I don't think she's got friends at all," I said. "I think she's in thrall to her horrible boyfriend and he beats her. No wonder the poor girl is terrified the whole while. She ought to be with her own family in her own country doing a proper job that uses up every scrap of time and gives her a sense of self-respect. Can you arrange it, Blake? There's no need to tell the agency why. And can we have a normal au pair next time, please? Is that too much to ask?"
CHAPTER SIX
It wasn't just at home things were changing. At work there were rumours of accountability, scaling back and outsourcing. The show I was working on was nearing the end of its run. Normally, I'd be assigned to something else in preparation at this stage, but on other projects people were clinging to their production jobs with the manic hands of those who could see the dole queue in their future. It wasn't looking good.
The BBC was commissioning externally though. Small, one-off programmes were creeping into the listings. It might not arrive just yet, but independent companies were likely to be the shape of things to come. I took a deep breath and when I was offered a redundancy package, I accepted.
Blake and I had discussed this, including the fact that it might take me a while to find a contract, but I hadn't told him all my plans. He was directing one of his own dramas at the time and having to stay in town for long hours, so I paid off au pair number three (a pert Austrian with the roundest, highest breasts I’d ever seen) and enrolled the kids in the local day nursery.
One of the church mums had told me about it. It had flexible hours to suit working parents and fed into the primary school Skye would be going to next September. It would, I said to Blake before he could get annoyed at the lack of consultation and argue with me, give Skye a head start because by then he would be used to full-time education in a play environment and he'd have already have made friends with the kids who would be going to the same school with him.
It would also give me time to pass my driving test and buy a small car while I sent out job applications. It was all very well Blake saying there was no need for me to learn since there were shops, buses and the station within walking distance and he would always be on hand to drive the kids further if necessary, but with my redundancy, the situation had now changed. Transport of my own was going to be essential for me as a freelancer. Not all television studios were handily situated next to tube stations.
I didn't expect the new nursery to change my life, but it did. Ellie was a chatterbox of a child even then and had been talking about a new friend, Tori, incessantly. One day when I collected her and Skye, there she was in the home corner, dark hair messy as usual, ha
nd in hand with a tiny blonde girl her own age. And crouching next to the pair of them, trying to persuade the blonde one to come home, was...
“Mark!” I said, a grin splitting my face. My whole body filled up with joy.
“Caro! I don't believe it!” He stood, his eyes lighting up with that wonderful warmth I remembered. “What are you doing here?”
I couldn't prevent my utter pleasure at seeing him spilling over. “Collecting the kids after a fruitless day's job-hunting. Skye, this is Mark, who I used to work with. I had no idea you and Jean lived around here.” In fact, I’d deliberately never looked for his address. I'd missed his friendship like a sold ache inside me, but there was no point messing up everyone's lives. Now though, two years on, both of us older, both of us with families, we could surely just be friends again, the way we'd been in the beginning?
"Skye, did you say? Jilly's boy?" Compassion touched Mark's voice.
"That's right. My boy now. Ellie, love, it's time to go home and have tea."
Mark looked even more astounded. “Caro, you're never telling me you are Ellie’s mum? Jean will be delighted. She was saying we’d have to get this new Ellie over to play one weekend. Tori will keep talking about her. Do come back with us now and say hello. Have you got time?”
"Yes. That would be lovely if it's not too far,” I said. "I haven't passed my driving test yet, so it's walk, bus or tube. How have you been?" I was just so pleased to see him that I accepted without thinking. I could feel my heart unfurl within my chest, like a time-lapse bulb putting down new roots, growing leaves and stalks and buds and flowers. I honestly hadn't realised until I saw Mark again how miserable I'd been for the past two years without the daily contact. It was a revelation.
He felt the same, I could tell. "Same as always," he said with a shrug, but he was smiling as widely as me and I heard his voice singing under the words. "Let's go, Tori. Ellie is coming with us."
Skye walked next to me, with Mark on his other side. He peered between the two pushchairs where Ellie and Tori were still holding hands and said, "Have I got two sisters now?"
